Scaffolding collapse on Willow Island

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Memorial to the victims

The Willow Island scaffolding collapse on April 27, 1978 killed 51 construction workers while building a natural draft cooling tower for the Pleasants coal-fired power station in Belmont , West Virginia . The incident represents one of the largest civil engineering accidents in United States history.

The large cooling towers of the coal-fired power plant were cast from concrete on site . For this purpose, a new formwork was placed on each completed row of concrete elements and poured. So the tower gradually grew in height. The workers in charge were on a circumferential work scaffold, which was attached to the top three rows of the finished concrete elements and was hydraulically raised with the completion of each new row and fixed to the concrete structure with bolts. The scaffolding therefore had no contact with the ground. The power plant's first cooling tower had already been erected in this way.

Shortly after around 10:00 on the morning of April 27th, the third concrete bucket of the day was supposed to be pulled to the working height of 51 meters - the crane used for this was also attached to the upper edge of the cooling tower - it crashed and the crane fell into the Direction of the inside of the tower under construction. The falling crane tore some concrete elements to which it was attached into the depths and started a chain reaction. In both directions the concrete elements together with the scaffolding elements on them began to loosen and fall down. All 51 workers on the scaffolding were killed as a result of the crash.

Subsequent investigations came to the conclusion that the top row of concrete elements, which had been poured the day before, could not harden properly due to the low temperatures on the night before the accident. Furthermore, a large number of the fastening bolts that connected the scaffolding to the tower had been loosened prematurely.

Individual evidence

  1. Modern Marvels / Jupiter Entertainment: Documentation excerpt on YouTube , accessed on January 12, 2020
  2. West Virginia Public Broadcasting: April 27, 1978: Willow Island Disaster Leaves 51 Men Dead , accessed January 12, 2020
  3. MetroNews: Pleasants County ceremony to mark Friday's 40th Anniversary of Willow Island Disaster , accessed January 12, 2020